Thanks to my friends at the snopes.com, I recently stumbled upon this phenomenon. Now, I know what you are thinking. "John, I understand and appreciate what you are trying to say because you are my deity and all, but I think you're a bit off here. If memory serves me correctly, it is beans that are the miracle fruit, due to the high correlation between the amount of their consumption and the amount of 'tooting' that takes place several hours later." To which I say the following:

a. I am a jealous God and frankly am not fond of the googly eyes you were making towards Jesus last Saturday,
b. Beans are a legume and not technically a fruit,
c. The childhood bit of poetry should have therefore been:
d. That's not a very good advertisement for beans, though. I also don't think it's entirely true. I once went a week eating nothing but beans and I was never hungry. I was also very lonely, but "legume" does not rhyme with "ennui" so that is right out.
e. This is the new miracle fruit.

Sadly, it's not available in the United States at this moment. Judging by the stock photos the BBC (also known as "the Beeb" at family reunions) chose to use in preparing this article, it could have profound effects on fat people and the lemon industry. However, I have to caution people as to the flavor-changing qualities. Specifically, I have composed a list of things to "watch out for":

- If a lemon tastes like a sugary lemon, it's possible that the active ingredient in this "miracle fruit" might be sugar.
- If a lemon tastes like the best lemon you've ever had in your life, maaan (like in the article), the active ingredient could be marijuana.
- If the lemon tastes like Thursday, perhaps it is LSD.

Lists are fun! Now, kids, go home and create your own! Johnny Slick is going to be munching away on this here DELICIOUS lemon.

This list is of indeterminate size because I am an indeterminate person.

Over ____ Options!

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/africa/news/article_1406272.php/Over_22_dead_in_anti-immigrant_violence_in_South_Africa__Roundup_

That's probably not the best example, but I think you've seen the meme. There is a way of doing this that makes sense; if you put down "Over 50 different characters to choose from!" on your Internet-based squirrel life simulator MMORPG, I am obliged to think that you got to 50 and then just said "screw it, there's a lot of them and I don't feel like counting anymore." To be honest, if there were actually 53 characters to choose from vs. 64, that would not really enter into my decision-making.

On the other hand, if you say "over 14 attributes can be changed!!!" then I know that that means that you have 15 attributes that can be changed. I mean, what kind of person counts to 14 and then stops? A person who has one foot and one toe on the other foot missing, that's who. And that means a Belgian. I am racist. The point here is, don't put "over (insert number here)" in your ad if (insert number here) does not end with a zero, because it's a very silly game that I see right through.

If you have an erection longer than 4 hours, please see a doctor. Don't you be acting like that's some kind of medical emergency, sucka. You know you only added that bit to the disclaimer portion of the male impotency ads to make men want to purchase it even more. It would be like if those male enlargement ads (I really want to call them "penis mightiers" but that would be juvenile) had a disclaimer that said "If you have problem fitting into your old pants, or if livestock rear up and try to run away when they see you from the front, please contact your doctor." Contact my doctor, my ass! I'm contacting my friends to tell them what I can do that they cannot! And by friends, I mean all the people who tormented me in high school! Am I right, guys? Am I right?

Anything created by Billy Mays. He had that "Oxy Clean" thing, which I admit kind of intrigued me. But I swear to God, everything the man comes out with now is just a mail-order version of something I can go buy at the local Rite-Aid. Also, I refuse to buy a cleaner named "Kaboom". I might buy a bomb named "Kaboom." The thing is, I have a general rule about housecleaning rule (aside from "avoid it" LOLOLOLOL Am I right, guys? Am I right?), and that is "if I am concerned that using a particular cleaner will cause my apartment to detonate and therefore cause me to lose my deposit, I will not necessarily buy that cleaner."

Also, what kind of name is Billy? I will tell you what kind of a name Billy is. It is my brother's real name. Oh, he will tell you that it is Bill, but we attended a memorial service for my great aunt this past April and according to pretty much everybody there his name is Billy. Who are you going to believe, my brother Bill(y) or like 50 old people?

Part of this balanced and nutritious breakfast. I have to admit that I have not watched Saturday morning cartoons in quite a while so I don't know if cereal companies still try to foist this particular meme off (or even if there are still Saturday morning cartoons), but there was often a little blurb for the parents at the end of your standard "SUGAR BOMBS GIVE YOUR CHILD ADHD WOWEE" cereal where an announcer would say "part of this balanced and nutritious breakfast" and then show a breakfast table with the cereal, some eggs, hash browns, pancakes, waffles, a steak, and maybe a plate of vegetables too (it's been a while, okay?). Yes, because realistically when your parent is buying you that cereal, you're going to be eating it along with all that other crap. I can think of several meals in which this happened. Well, I can think of the times we couldn't afford a regular dinner so we ate pancakes instead, but that's similar, right?

What I want to know is, why did Kellogg's et al even try this? It's one thing to toss "SUGAR BOMBS YOUR CHILD EATS THESE AND WILL BECOME DYLAN KLEBOLD" out there and make otherwise innocent children possessed by corporate advertising in a way that would make George Romero proud, but look, cereal manufacturer: you don't gain plausible deniability by showing that big picture of breakfast with your cereal prominently featured. What you get is parents saying, "hey, nice monkey! Monkeys are so funny! I agree with my child, we shall buy this cereal forthwith! (balanced breakfast) Hey, just what are you trying to pull over my eyes? Just for that, I am buying the cereal with the bee on the front!"

Got ___? I don't care how much you love Jesus, when you replace "Milk" with "Jesus", all you do is make us think of small children with 'Jesus' mustaches on their faces. Is that really the sort of message you want your church to give?

I'm out! (drops the mic on the floor)

100 posts seemed like such a nice, round number, but I had to break it some time. Will this be the resumption of aWesomeness? I cannot say.

As for the title... I've been intimating about doing so for a while, and so I finally checked out the [URL="http://www.eastshoreunitarian.org/"]local one[/URL]. I've held off on it because, frankly, as an atheist I think it's kind of blasphemous for me to go into somebody else's house of worship. I know that UU isn't really a "Christian" church, exactly, but I've talked to folks about other churches where they insisted that they "weren't like that" but at the end their fundamental beliefs - for example, the divinity of Christ - stood at odds with my own "based on the evidence at hands, I doubt there's a God at all, and if there is one, They are not terribly active" ideals.

Anyway, though, I went and it was... interesting. The particular pastor was not the most exciting man in the world, and it was probably not the best idea to go to a house of worship for the first time on Memorial Day weekend. A few random observations...

- The bookstore had Dawkins' [I]The God Delusion[/I]. Seriously. Unfortunately, I think it was probably put there in an aggressive "we allow all types" kind of way, but it was still interesting to see.

- The service, the hymns, and pretty much everything about the church are carefully worded so as not to exclude anybody. One of the pages of the service guide began with "Jesus was right", but continued in a vein that said what he actually was was sort of right in that when we die we live on in the love of others. I thought that the whole concept was pretty cool but I wonder how far you can take this sort of thing without making every sermon sound exactly the same.

- I do have to say that I enjoyed the politics. One of the bigger bits of trepidation was that I was afraid I'd happen to go to some place that said "well, we think that Jesus Christ was a great philosopher and maybe or maybe not the Son of God but also we hate gay people." Irrational? I'm sorry, it seems like every outspoken Christian I speak to nowadays has some level of homophobia about them, and any time I hear one of them speak I feel like it is my own family they are insulting (and in a sense they are) and I want to punch them. Happily, not only was this UU church a "Welcoming" congregation, meaning that gay, lesbian, and transgendered persons were all allowed, the social justice program brochures spoke to several protests and marches they were a part of.

- No choir, and when I sightread the bass part in the hymns (UUs have their own hymnal! Two of them, actually!) I got a couple of weird looks. I was doing a pretty good job, so I don't think they were giving me the tone-deaf evil eye or anything.

- I'm still conflicted, though. One thing that conservative Christians have alleged about atheists is that in not allowing the Christian god into their life, they make themselves their own god. That never made sense to me but I think I kind of get what they're trying to say now. The whole point of listening to a pastor talk about the values he carries and would like you to endorse, coupled with the meditation and repetition of vows in both the spoken word and song imply a giving up a portion of my own decision-making I don't know that I am comfortable doing. I mean, I don't see any values about UU that I disagree with... it's just that as a skeptic and a snopester I also value my right to reserve judgement on... anything as inalienable, and it feels just a little bit like doing the above kind of erodes that a little bit.

It's a very interesting group, though. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, and because of that I don't know whether the experience was what I thought it was going to be or not. As a couple of the people I talked to said, it's probably not a decision that can be made following a single hour and a half long service.

For those of you who are concerned that the world as represented by wikipedia has a liberal bias, there is, fortunately, the Conservapedia. It is a wonderful tool for boldes everywhere. Just look at a few meaningful excerpts:

From the Evolution page:

Evolutionists posit that the earth and universe are billions of years old and that macroevolutionary processes occurred over this time period.^[171][172] William R. Corliss is a respected cataloger of scientific anomalies and the science magazine New Scientist had an article which focused on Mr. Corliss's career as a cataloger of scientific anomalies. ^[173] Mr. Corliss has cataloged scores of anomalies which challenge the old earth geology paradigm.^[174][175] Young earth creationist hold the earth and universe is approximately 6,000 years old.^[171] Young earth creationist scientists state the following is true: there are multiple lines of evidence pointing to a young earth and universe; the old earth and universe paradigm has numerous anomalies and uses invalid dating methods, and there are multiple citations in the secular science literature that corroborate the implausibility of the old earth and universe paradigm (for details see: Young Earth Creationism).

You know, if there is one thing I think people need to know more about when it comes to evolution, it's that it is not compatible with Bishop Usher's dating system. Also the dinosaurs are fake. Let's look up dinosaurs...

Creationists cite a number of reasons to believe that dinosaurs have existed until relatively recent times, and perhaps still survive.

• There have been a number of claimed sightings of dinosaur-like creatures.
  • A thousand people reported seeing a dinosaur-like monster in two sightings around Sayram Lake in Xinjiang according to the Chinese publication, China Today.^[9]
  • Among those who believe in the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, one popular theory is that it is a living plesiosaur.^[15]
  • Locals in the Congo have reported a creature they name Mokele-member^[9][16], and from its description it appears to be a small plant-eating dinosaur. The reports have been taken seriously enough that a biologist from Chicago University has made several expeditions to find the creature. Another biologist has reported seeing the creature.^[9]
• There are drawings of creatures resembling dinosaurs.

See, all this time I thought that people who believed in the Loch Ness Monster were just unrelated wackjobs. I mean, the man who kicked off that craze admitted it was all a big hoax. But no! Not only is it not a hoax, it is evidence for creationism!

Also, I would like to speak to the powerful evidence that drawings of dinosaur-like creatures exist. Dragons, for example. St. George slew the dragon Temptation, and that, of course, means that there really were dragons. They are so real, they were even named after sins! The evil-utionists may tell you that this is an obvious allegory, but they are evil and the so-called science that they practice is evil. Also, look at Jurassic Park. Could that book have even been written if Michael Crichton did not walk among the dinosaurs himself? That book is too realistic to just be made up.

Okay, maybe I am going too far on creationism. Boldes are a diverse group, and as such they are interested in many different things. For example, let's take a look at the top 10 most interesting thing to boldes, according to Conservapedia:

Most viewed pages

1. Main Page [1,924,322]
2. Homosexuality [1,620,848]
3. Homosexuality and Hepatitis [517,808]
4. Homosexuality and Promiscuity [421,783]
5. Homosexuality and Parasites [414,444]
6. Gay Bowel Syndrome [398,766]
7. Homosexual Couples and Domestic Violence [373,661]
8. Homosexuality and Gonorrhea [331,975]
9. Homosexuality and Anal Cancer [293,999]
10. Homosexuality and Mental Health [293,217]

I couldn't make this up if I tried.

With my blog count nearing 100 posts, I am finding it more and more important not to "waste" blogs on useless, banal crap. 50 years from now, do I want to look back upon my MySpace blog and think, "you know, 100 really shouldn't have been a 4-line stoopid rap"? No, of course not. These things weigh heavily on my mind. However, this is 99 and as such I can make it as crap as I want.

It has occurred to me that, despite a large amount of time spent trying to figure out which alien menace we should be allowed to commit genocide on this quarter on the part of video game designers, there are still a number of basic societal memes that have been left all but untouched by this genre. I will list a few and see if your paradigms are appropriately shifted:

Waterboarding

Not exactly.

My Internet friend Hollis has a nice write-up on waterboarding. It's pretty nasty and yes, it's probably something our military shouldn't be doing. But how cool would it be to play a video game in which you are tracking down like a nuclear bomb or something and the only way to find out about it is by devising creative ways to torture Arabs. Oh, of course you'd have to rename them B-rabs or something so that real A-rabs are not offended (PC RUN AMOK), but you get the idea.

You could get extra points by "accidentally" murdering an especially mouthy detainee for freedom.

Serial murderer

It rubs the lotion on its skin... hey, wait a minute. Something is not right here.

Okay, I know, in basically every first person shooter ever made, you are responsible for murdering hundreds if not thousands of assorted aliens, zombies, and B-rabs. But how awesome would it be to have a game where you had to kill Cambodian immigrants so you could collect their body parts in your freezer to create an undead sex slave? Very awesome, of course. You could be periodically chased by Jodie Foster, and, after 20 years of you basically telling him that you killed hookers and left their bodies on public roads for the police to find, you could be finally caught by Gary Ridgeway.

Picture Pages

Like millions if not trillions of children who grew up up in the late 70s and early 80s, my mornings were characterized by two things:

1. Watching the Picture Pages right after Captain Kangaroo, and
2. Asking, nay, begging my parents to send off for the Picture Pages so I could play along with Bill Cosby.

It occurs to me that in today's modern Internet-driven society we have the technology at our fingertips to bring this to the home of every American. So why have we not done this? Bill Cosby hates America, that much is true, but I think there is a larger issue. Perhaps there was a falling out between Cosby and the little marking pen (what was it's name? Penman? Marky Mark?). Perhaps the cast of the X-Files, who were clearly actual FBI agents as evidenced by the fact that none of them have had a useful acting career after that show, made off with all the episodes and have them stored next to the Ark of the Covenant in their secret warehouse. Who knows? All I know is, I wants me some Picture Pages.

The Darjeeling Limited. Wes Anderson's latest work and yet another really good movie for him. I have to admit that I absolutely adored The Royal Tennenbaums, a movie a lot of other people thought was kind of sappy. This one lacks Royal's melodrama... well, okay, it's got plenty of melodrama of its own, I guess. But this is neither the sort of movie where every single character has a Big Moment That Will Change His Life Forever In Numerous Ways, nor is it just 3 guys wandering around India for a couple hours.

One of the things I really like about Wes Anderson movies is that you never hear exposition by dialogue. That's a personal pet peeve of mine. In a Wes Anderson movie, you occasionally find yourself dying to hear a character to say one thing, just a few words, that would make everything right. Sometimes they come (see Ben Stiller at the end of Royal), sometimes they never do. It's a very... Raymond Carver-ish technique, and since I am one of those stuck-up literary snobs, I eat that crap up.

The other thing I love about WA is the way every little detail is lovingly and caringly picked out. This is not as easy to do in the Indian countryside as it is in a New York City brownstone or a upper-class private school, but Wes still manages to do it. This is another thing I just plain love. It's almost like you're watching a play on the stage because of this, only with the muted, realistic actions of movie acting rather than stage acting. This is also something I love to look at in repeated viewings. There are few things that excite me more about buying a DVD when it comes out than knowing that I will be rewarded for watching something for the 4th or 5th time through.

In terms of Wes Anderson, it's definitely ahead of The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (which I enjoyed, but is so far the weakest of Anderson's efforts) and... at this point, it's about even IMO with everything else he's done. Maybe a hair behind Rushmore.

This has been passed around snopes.com (one of them there message boards I like to go to) and I must share. Behold, the JC Penny Catalog from 1977:

http://15minutelunch.blogspot.com/2007/10/strap-in-shut-up-and-hold-on-were-going.html

Incidentally, since I am hosting these photos instead of just hotlinking to them, I am going to attach my own zany comments. Going to the above website will give you even more photos with different, albeit lesser, zany comments.

I totally want one of these:


Heck, I want the whole set. What says "I am a pirate" better than an entire set of chair, couch, and dining room table made out of barrels? Yar, matey, I be watchin' thar Rockford Files tonight or ye shall walk the plank. Don't give me yer lip about how I live on the first floor. A plank is a plank and ye be walkin' it.


I will tell you right now, the original website spends way too much time talking about non-belty things when in fact all you really want to know about is that MASSIVE belt that kid is wearing. I'm pretty sure that would be considered large on a full-sized adult. If you were a parent in the 70s and you bought your child this belt, it was you who were afraid to "sass" your child because it was THEY who had the power to bend you over your knee and whip your butt with that gigantic belt. Remember the movie "So I Married An Axe Murderer"? If one of the 42 Mike Myers-played characters bought Head this belt, his name would no longer be Head, I can tell you that much right now. There are hundreds, perhaps even thousands more belt jokes I could come up with, but the eyeholes are staring at me and telling me to stop.


In the 1970s, it was fashionable to look like you just escaped prison.

Finally (although there are more at the site!)

The original website this is on is all like "ooh I don't understand it must be about chest hair ooo". The reality cannot be further from the truth. In fact, this man is clearly wearing a shirt modeled on 19th century baseball uniforms:

Do not ask me why this man is wearing sausages on his head or playing with a red baseball (the two are probably linked somehow but this is a family blog in which responders use terms like "Holy Bejeezers" instead of "what the fuck I mean what the fucking fuck", so I shan't delve into any more detail. The important part here is the shirt-shield. In fact, the only thing that could possibly make the original picture more awesome is if JC Penney sold it with a scripted "A" emblazoned on the front. Or a scripted "J" even. They could sell it in all the letters of the alphabet so you could use them to spell the name of your favorite stationery store. It's fun for the whole family! Just don't cross Junior if you want to avoid a butt-whuppin'.

Not much to say here except that I found this video while perusing YouTube for "money shots" of the bear's first cousin, the panda:



If this is the way pandas must get together, then maybe they should go extinct after all! God did not make Panda and Steve, he made Panda and Eve. Also He gave us the know-how to make and therefore watch video porns, NOT pandas. NOT pandas. They have opposable thumbs, you idiots out there in China! If you give them the power of television, they will soon move on to the Military Channel and then tractors, and from there jeeps, then tanks, and pretty soon we will have a panda dictator. And let me tell you something: just because they are cuddly does not mean you (and by "you" I mean anyone out there who underestimates their "kind") will not be the first against the wall.

Say what you will about Swanson's, they sure know their demographic. They don't waste their time with talk of some whimsical grandmother who can cook of a storm a la Marie Callendar or whoever Stouffer is, or even pretend that your "cuisine" is "lean" or that you are making a "healthy choice". No, when you see a Swanson's TV dinner in the freezer at the supermarket it says "HUNGRY MAN" for all to see. And I mean all. That checkout girl who is snickering at nothing in particular? She is laughing at you, HUNGRY MAN. Do not bring HUNGRY MAN to work because you will be called into your boss's office for being work-inappropriate. Do not buy HUNGRY MAN if you have a wife or girlfriend because she will dump you and/or make you throw HUNGRY MAN out. Really, it should be called FAT SINGLE MAN but there are limits to these truth in advertising laws.

Anyway, I would like to highlight this HUNGRY MAN in particular:



There is so much to study here. First, the fact that Swanson's does not only feel the need to inform you of the English weight of the food, but that it believes it is an advertising point. 1 1/2 POUNDS OF FOOD. And right underneath it even spells it out for the science-minded. Since I am single and there is a chance that you, dear reader, are not, I will say this: they are not kidding. Although roughly a half-pound of that 1 1/2 POUNDS OF FOOD are mashed potatoes that basically taste like whatever is also in your mouth, it is still there. It is a struggle to pick up this 1 1/2 POUNDS OF FOOD. Just think: if you ate this meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 3 months and didn't do any exercise beyond pooping, you could gain 100 pounds easy. The only thing you would lose in return is your dignity. Also probably a belt or two.

Also there is the bit about this being the backyard barbecue. As you can see from the cover, this beast comes with 2 things that are also known as the McDonald's McRib patty. Now I will admit that I have not barbecued in quite some time but I do not believe I have ever even heard anybody  say "hey, want to come over? I am cooking pre-shaped slabs of pork slathered in molasses on my grill!" When you think about it, putting sugar on meat is kind of gross. Yet, when you call it "barbecue sauce" that makes it delicious. But that's not the point. The point is: who mixes up Mickey D's most disgusting seasonal meat and lazy summer evenings on the back porch? The HUNGRY MAN, that's who.

Another of my favorite HUNGRY MANs:



I know what you are thinking. "Salisbury steak? What the F? That's just a hamburger patty with gravy on it." Well, let me tell you a little story. Back in World War I, the English were at war with the Germans and as such were not big fans of the German culture. However, they had one big problem: they were big fans of the German culture, as shown by all the German stuff they liked. Chief among them the hamburger steak. Saying "hamburg" every time they made this semi-delicious concoction made them choke but at the same time they did not want to give up the meal altogether, so instead they changed its name from a city in Germany to a city in England.

Yes, that's right. The Salisbury steak is the early-19th century equivalent of freedom fries. You may also be wondering if this has anything to do with why the English call German Shepherds Alsatians and you would be correct on that point as well. I bring this up because we have now come to the point where the only time you're *ever* going to eat a hamburger patty with gravy is if it's in a HUNGRY MAN, and sadly now you will no longer be able to fool yourself into thinking that it is actually some ancient English recipe made with saffron and thyme.

I just got my ID card replaced on Monday because, well, I'd been walking around for the past couple years without one. It's not as bad as you'd think since I don't drive and only stupid people card me when I want beer (look at the pic to the left and tell me I look under 21. I dare ya. In DOG YEARS MAYBE! Wait, I think that makes the opposite point. Pretend there is a species of animal that lives way longer than humans and replace that with "dog". Don't use "elf" though because that is too nerdy).

Still, I also lost my ATM card over the weekend and taking money out of the bank when you have neither that nor ID is not easy. "Just go to the bank where they know you", say the people over the phone. Yes. In today's day of the Internets and so on, I generally go inside the bank about once a month to get a money order for rent (yes, I like to live low to the ground. Sue me). The bank where people know me does not exist. Perhaps I could get my co-workers or family members to create a bank. Hijinx would ensue, I am sure, but they would know me and that is the bottom line.

So anyway I went out and got my ID renewed and faced down a - CAN YOU BELIEVE IT - snotty DMV person who obviously was not a fan of her job. First, when I sidled up she asked me to present her with some sort of identification. Um, hello! I don't have identification! That is why I am here. Also my name is Christine Gregoire. Anyway, I called beforehand and the guy said - and I quote - "no, sir, you do not have to bring your social security card or other identification with you. We can look at your picture online and match you up that way."

By online, I mean they have a picture of me in the gubment, not that they would look at my Myspace page. In any case, the apparent point of this, since the woman did go on to give me the card, was just to harass me. Sexually. Not true. Obviously, I am more happy to have my card than not to have it, but if you're going to tell me I need to have ID and then let me go without it, that means one of two things:

1. You are lying about the first bit.
2. You aren't doing your job about the second bit and I am not kidding about my name being Christine Gregoire.
3. It is Magical Fairy World.

That was 3 reasons but really reason 3 is so true that it's pretty much not worth mentioning and besides, it can be true along with 1 and 2.

Why are people like this? This my theory: they suck. That is all. Have fun with your wretched lives.